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enGareth Edwards - The Dusty Wright Showhttp://culturecatch.com/index.php/vidcast/gareth-edwards
<span>Gareth Edwards - The Dusty Wright Show</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/dusty-wright" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/dusty-wright" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Dusty Wright</a></span>
<span>November 4, 2010 - 10:29</span>
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<p>UK filmmaker Gareth Edwards discusses his fantastic low-budget <span data-scayt_word="sci-fi" data-scaytid="1">sci-fi</span> movie <em>Monsters</em> with host Dusty Wright. (Director of <em>Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, </em>too<em>.</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_GYUTqxEjNxtD8pKeNp4Gg">Subscribe via Youtube</a> or <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/culturecatch-vidcast">Subscribe</a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/culturecatch-vidcast"> via Feedburner</a></p>
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<section></section>Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:29:40 +0000Dusty Wright1583 at http://culturecatch.comI Lost My Virginity (and More) to Vegetationhttp://culturecatch.com/index.php/node/3810
<span>I Lost My Virginity (and More) to Vegetation</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Brandon Judell</a></span>
<span>January 9, 2019 - 20:39</span>
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<p>Jean Cocteau meets David Lynch with a good dash of Colette in Bertrand Mandico's sensationally trippy 2018 release, <i>The Wild Boys </i>(<i>Les Garçons Sauvage</i>). Or if you must, just imagine Melville if he'd been a feminist on acid. <i>Billy Budd </i>times five.</p>
<p>Yes, here's a tale of a close-knit gang of well-to-do lads, who get carried away enacting a scene from <i>Macbeth</i> for their beloved literature teacher, a Ms. Lorna Debougainville, in a lush field. Wearing unnerving masks and egged on by an evil spiritual force named TREVOR, the teens ravish and ejaculate on their instructor before tying her nude, gagged body onto a horse, which gallops into a chasm, fatally ending Ms. Lorna’s future expounding on the classics.</p>
<p>Before you start running for the hills, thinking this is a Lars von Triers offering a la <i>The House That Jack Built</i>, please note that the young men here are all played by young women, but this is not a drag show. If I hadn't been forewarned, you might not have guessed at the masquerade at all. Or you might have just sensed something was a little off. Or on.</p>
<p>Well, to sidestep prison sentences for defiling the aforementioned damsel and administering her coup de grace, the boys are handed over to the eerie Captain by their parents. This grizzled ancient mariner, with his huge penis that’s tattooed with islands where he’s made some sexual conquests, promises to rid all of his charges of their antisocial behaviors. However, he can’t promise any will survive the sea journey he’s taking them on. That seems an acceptable risk for the lads’ moms and pops.</p>
<p>Once afloat, the boys are roped and chained and forced to do chores that only the fittest of sailors could accomplish with a smile. Their only food is a hairy fruit that the more brazen among us might note seems very vaginal.</p>
<p>After days of sadistic treatment and a dog drowning, the ship lands on an unknown island that smells like an oyster and is populated with plants that you can fornicate with. Other flora, when their phallic tubes are snipped, pulse out a delicious nectar. And there’s even one that will cover you with a cocoon-like stickiness that you can only escape by urinating on it, but then … Oh, no! Can it be true? No, please, not that. You might find yourself turning into a female who enjoys the company of other females.</p>
<p>For those of you unfamiliar with Charles Ludlam's hilarious 1970's off-Broadway hit, <i>Bluebeard, </i>there's a scene in which the mad scientist, while seeking to create a third, more satisfying sex organ, exclaims, "I will never cease in my experimenting. My dream is to remake Man. A new man with new possibilities for love."</p>
<p>In <i>The Wild Boys</i>, the goal is to rid the world of men and their penchant for war and violence one cock at a time through the eating of the aforementioned hairy fruit and the swallowing of other dietary aids. And when one character's groin falls to the ground, he is asked: "What will you do with your dick?"</p>
<p>"What should I do with it? Bury it with dignity . . . ."</p>
<p>So ends one of the most beautiful celluloid offerings of last year that is only now available on Amazon Prime and Vimeo.</p>
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<drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&1=3810&2=comment_node_story&3=comment_node_story" token="W0cXt65h_NeeSh3fLSqhrzFNklff9LqoSsnrqcHAglM"></drupal-render-placeholder></section>Thu, 10 Jan 2019 01:39:11 +0000Brandon Judell3810 at http://culturecatch.comBirth of A Starhttp://culturecatch.com/index.php/node/3784
<span>Birth of A Star</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/mark-weston" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/mark-weston" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Mark Weston</a></span>
<span>October 25, 2018 - 10:21</span>
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<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="http://culturecatch.com/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2018/2018-10/casey-killoran-viral-beauty.png?itok=mmFcdIQJ" width="1200" height="675" alt="Thumbnail" title="casey-killoran-viral-beauty.png" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p>Right now, the entire world seems to be in love with the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga vehicle <em>A Star Is Born</em>. </p>
<p>But guess what? There is another film out there that is so indy it is mini-indy – make that micro-mini-indy - and in it, you can witness the actual birth of an actual star. Her name is Casey Killoran. She plays a Staten Island millennial named Marsha Day in a movie called <a href="http://www.viralbeautymovie.com" target="_blank"><em>Viral Beauty</em></a>.</p>
<p>For those of us over 40, that sounds like the title of a medical drama. But the younger crowd will instantly know that it is about our social media and internet age. Marsha Day becomes a social media celebrity when her online quest for a boyfriend goes viral. Marsha is a beautiful young woman who is curvaceous, and thus becomes an icon for real women everywhere and a target for vicious fat-shaming. </p>
<p>The film is formulaic and literally skin deep, as Marsha meets her Prince Charming and struggles to lose thirty pounds to fulfill the contract of her diet product endorsement. And, if the film was made with less panache and a lesser cast, it wouldn’t be worth your time.</p>
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<p>Director David Tyson Lam provides a jaunty landscape, both on line in its verite blogging and in its gorgeous depiction of a latter day romance with New York City that goes beyond the boundaries of Manhattan. The music is great and the cast of kookie internet bloggers is hysterically funny – led by the celebrity narration provided by a winning, if too-loud Perez Hilton. And the tuxedo cat Mister Kittsy almost steals the show.</p>
<p>But <em>Viral Beauty</em> will not be remembered for its story, direction, cinematography or commentary on our celebrity culture. <em>Viral Beauty</em> will be known as the film that introduced Casey Killoran to Hollywood and the world. Ms. Killoran employs a Staten Island accent that is so authentic it alone captures a certain type of New York milieu – a working class cousin to the Boston Southy characters made famous by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in <em>Good Will Hunting</em>. The film essentially charts Ms. Killoran’s character’s make-over from ugly duckling to – ahem, “viral beauty” – but Ms. Killoran is so touchingly real, so full of enthusiasm and joie de vivre that her natural beauty is evident from the first moment to the last. Behind the working class veneer, Ms. Killoran imbues Marsha Day with both impeccable comic timing and a deep emotional intelligence. </p>
<p>In short, Casey Killoran carries this movie, exhibiting a range that more experienced actors rarely achieve. Yes, I am gushing, but I defy you to see this film and not fall head over heels in love with her. </p>
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<drupal-render-placeholder callback="comment.lazy_builders:renderForm" arguments="0=node&1=3784&2=comment_node_story&3=comment_node_story" token="crMIBLUqFeYYDM3gNidlRhqNIuTyMz4e92azxaQTr4Q"></drupal-render-placeholder></section>Thu, 25 Oct 2018 14:21:32 +0000Mark Weston3784 at http://culturecatch.comIs Jeremiah Zagar America’s Quirkiest New Auteur? “We the Animals” Screams, “Yes!”http://culturecatch.com/index.php/node/3770
<span>Is Jeremiah Zagar America’s Quirkiest New Auteur? “We the Animals” Screams, “Yes!”</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Brandon Judell</a></span>
<span>September 24, 2018 - 15:39</span>
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<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="http://culturecatch.com/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2018/2018-09/we_are_animals_jonah_flying.png?itok=SaEKm5Si" width="1200" height="509" alt="Thumbnail" title="we_are_animals_jonah_flying.png" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p>I'm hesitantly dialing Jeremiah Zagar’s phone number. Young directorial genius is always intimidating to confront. I recall first interviews with Darren Aronofky, François Ozon, and Xavier Dolan. I’m not sure if John Waters fits in here, but why not? These folks hit you over the head with their originality and audaciousness. You sit there looking into their eyes and wonder where it all comes from.</p>
<p>Just watch "<em><a href="https://vimeo.com/48463116" target="_blank">Baby Eats Baby</a></em>," the live-action/claymation short which Zagar co-directed with Michael Reich in 2004. You need a deep sense of black humor to get through the delicious, high-anxiety-producing visuals of two dads preparing frightful dinners. Only now that I’ve discovered "Baby" is meant as a commentary on American foreign policy during the Bush era can I breathe a little easier.</p>
<p>Two other shorts and a celebrated documentary, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X6W-AL3Csw" target="_blank">In a Dream</a></i>, chronicle the life of the director’s dad, Isaiah, a renowned mosaic artist whose works decorate over 200 public walls in Philadelphia. His mom, Julia, is no slouch either. Clearly, here’s a highly feisty, highly quotable family unit.</p>
<p>Zagar was also the creative director of "Starved for Attention," a series of shorts about worldwide childhood malnutrition that was co-produced by Doctors Without Borders. Oddly, there’s also an HBO doc on the trials of Pamela Smart on his resume.</p>
<p>But at the moment, Zagar's prize-winning adaptation of Justin Torres's novel of a childhood is why we are speaking. In a rather fine year for film, <i>We the Animals</i>, tops the list. Here’s a peerless work of art that combines sound, animation, music, superb cinematography and editing, plus a terrific cast, in an unexpected manner that recounts the tale of a boy’s tribal adventures with his brothers, a disappearing dad, and a receding mom. Witty and poignant, the finished product interacts with Torres’s prose in a manner that captures and even enhances the must-read novel.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> I've just been watching your films.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Like which ones?</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> "Baby Eat Baby," <i>In a Dream</i> . . .</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Wow!</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> I'm glad I hadn't seen them before I saw <i>We the Animals</i></p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> You saw "Baby Eats Baby"? (Laughs)</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Yes.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> You're the only who saw "Baby Eats Baby." Like seven people.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> I'm going to spread the word. Watching that short, one wonders why you didn't go into the horror genre.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> (Laughs.) My co-director [Michael Reich] did. He's a horror film maker now. [<i>She's Allergic to Cats</i> (2016)]. So you can imagine the influence is there.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> In <i>In a Dream,</i> your father says, "All my artwork is a portrait of my life." If we start putting your films together, is the result sort of a portrait of your life?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Sure, yeah!</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> You and brother Ezekiel both sport beards. Is that because of your dad's extreme hirsuteness or are you following the beard trend.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Well, I have had beards since I was 19 years old. I have a weak chin so the beard always helped fill out my face. My brother, he always wore a beard. His came a little bit later when he got into Rastafarianism. I just look better with a beard so that's what I dealt with. My father also has a very weak chin. So a beard is family compensation.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Did your mother ever wish she had a daughter. Was there too much testosterone in your house?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> My father wished he had a daughter. My father really wanted me to be a daughter. Yeah, I wasn't, unfortunately for him. I don’t know if my mother cared. She was a very loving mother. We were very close, my mother and I. She’s the best. She would never tell me if she had wanted a daughter. My father told me many times. (Chuckles.)</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Your father has said that it’s so important to find that person who would help you fulfill your destiny, your dream. “If you are lucky, you will find that dream. If you are lucky that person will find you.” Have you found that person yet?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Oh, absolutely, and my wife and I both have big dreams. She’s a caterer and a chef with her own company. She works around the clock, and I’m very supportive of her dream. She came and did the catering for our movie. And she let me film the birth of our son and put it in the movie. And she’s been very supportive (He sneezes) of my dream. I know I could not have made <i>We the Animals</i> without her for sure.</p>
<p><b>BJ: </b>There was talk of you creating an autobiographical movie when you came across the Torres’s novel. Do you relate to Mr. Torres’s route to becoming an artist?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Yes, very much so. Yes, I mean I think I understood the act of making a book as an act of freeing oneself from the gilded cage of one’s family. I understood that act as one of the important acts of one’s life. And I related to it, you know, as person who’s done the same.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Your father says he is a sensualist. “I touch shit,” he notes. And then you find out that’s not a metaphor. Is there anything in life you would not portray on film?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Well, I didn't have hit him shit in his hand. (Laughs) Some things you don't need to see necessarily to feel. I think . . . I'm interested in not sanitizing life. I don't see life as something that is clean. I find it messy and complicated and dirty. And I think when people try to sanitize love and try to sanitize life and try to sanitize family for that matter, we get a watered-down version of truth. Of emotional truth. And a watered-down version of emotional truth is a useless tool for an artist.</p>
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<p><b>BJ:</b> For the film, you aged the children about three years, which seems only logical. It would have been harder to get three young actors at 7, 8, and 9 to portray these characters. Also, with the subject matter, it might have been harder to enact with younger actors. What that your reasoning for aging them?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Sort of. We had to sort of find a soft spot. The book is kind of amorphous where the age of the young people lands from chapter to chapter. The only time age is ever really mentioned is in the seven-years-old scene which we changed to the 9-years-old scene. We did that because we needed the boys to be right in the sweet spot of puberty . . . the transformation towards puberty. Because if they were in that sweet spot, some of them could transform, and Jonah [the youngest] was able to not transform. That was really the key. We couldn’t lapse the amount of years that lapsed in the book so we had to figure what was the true transformational moment of these young boys logically if [the story] was going to take place over one year.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> You change the awakening of Jonah as opposed to what happens in the book, and I think you made the right move. It would have broken the whole mood of the film. Were they arguments about how you would do it? Was it always this way in the screenplay?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Yeah, there was never an argument about it. It was certainly a conversation that Justin and I had with Dan, my co-writer. We all talked about the fact that it was going to be difficult to age the young man to a place where he could have a sexual experience in the back of a bus. That moment for the character in the book takes place somewhere between 15 and 18 years old. It’s an adult move he’s making. A ten year old. An eleven year old. It changes that interaction. So we needed to find something that was a queer coming-out moment for this young boy, or a realization or a sexual moment for this young boy that was relevant for what that kind of a young boy would actually experience.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Right. Is the coming out supposedly meant as a surprise because in my review, I didn't really want to bring it up?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> I think you could say, it is a surprise, but you could say there are queer scenes in the movie that are present without giving up [too much]. You can say that in the book there’s a different element to the ending. That's fine.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Since I hadn't read the book at that time, it's such a surprise, and it's wonderful to experience that without knowing it's going to happen.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> That's the beauty of sexuality of being young. I haven't seen it so clearly portrayed as it was in Justin's book. You don't know what your sexuality is necessarily until you start to explore sexuality, period. There's a part of your life where sexuality is mixed up much more with brotherly love and familial love than it is with romantic love. And slowly but surely as you begin to change, you begin to awaken your sexual being, and that sexual being is different for everyone. And so really the movie is universal in that way. But what this young boy is experiencing is very different from what his brothers are experiencing. That’s for sure.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> There are moments of magic realism, especially when Jonah flies. And with the animation of the journals. But when you see "Baby Eats Baby" there were seeds of that already there with your mixture of claymation and regular narrative. Is that something you've done often?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Yes. I mean I love animation. I love when it's done right and integrated correctly. The films of Jan Švankmajer were enormously influential. A lot of Czech animation of that time were really, really meaningful for me when I was young. And I love <i>Roger Rabbit</i>. I can think of being a kid and watching people combine animation and live action. But the truth is that I just really enjoy the magic of cinema. I think that animation always feel like magic. It always feels like cinema. And my world was always comingled with those two things if you think about who my father is, our whole lives were animated.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Once you make a film like yours, which is so perfect, you find out that Hollywood agents are crawling out after you and you are having studio meetings, and all that. I remember Neil Jordan went out and did his big Hollywood film with DeNiro, which flopped. Are you already getting calls?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> Sure, yeah. Yes, I've had a number of calls from Hollywood agents at the lot. But you know I think what I'll do are the same kind of stories that I pursued before. I have to pursue stories that are very emotionally, viscerally, and physically my own. That's simply who I am.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> So have you bought the rights to any other books yet?</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> I'm looking at two. One I can't really talk about yet. More than that I'm interested in working with the same collaborators that I worked with on the other film. Jeremy [Yaches], my producer; Cinereach who made the movie; and Dan [Kitrosser]. We're all working on a project together. That's the vital key to me. These are my collaborators for the rest of my life. I'm a very loyal, simple (laughs), dedicated human being, and I love working with the people who love working with me.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> What was Torres' reaction the first time he saw the finished film?</p>
<p><b>TZ:</b> Well, it wasn't like that because he was part of the creation throughout the whole thing. So Justin was there when we shot the movie, and he was there when we wrote the script, and he was there throughout the entire editing process. There's a lot of different emotions he felt. But I think ultimately what we landed on and what we created together is a film that we’re both very proud of.</p>
<p><b>BJ:</b> Can you watch the film with objectivity? I guess you can't.</p>
<p><b>JZ:</b> No, I can't. You know, before we went to Sundance, I watched the film 12 times in three days all on a big screen to doublecheck it. Doublecheck it. Doublecheck it. To make sure all the tracks were correct, so I don’t watch the film [any more]. But I have participated in Q and A's and in audience reactions. And it’s very moving to . . . Like my uncle, he's a gay man, who's with my family on and off for my entire life. And he's one of the closest people in my life. He, my mother, and my father were all at the Sundance premiere next to each other watching the movie. When I came on, they were crying a lot. People were crying a lot. People were moved, but my uncle said, "Thank you for making a movie about me." And my father said, "Thank you for making a movie about me." And mother said, "Thank you for making a movie about me." And I thought (laughing), What a good reaction. A movie that could mean so much to so many people.</p>
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<span>One of the Best Coming-of-Age Novels and Films of the Decade</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Brandon Judell</a></span>
<span>August 13, 2018 - 14:35</span>
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<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><article class="embedded-entity"><img src="http://culturecatch.com/sites/default/files/styles/width_1200/public/2018/2018-08/we_the_animals_image_5.jpg?itok=hS8YNdmP" width="1200" height="659" alt="Thumbnail" title="we_the_animals_image_5.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" class="img-responsive" /></article><p>"Of course, at their best, movies are anti-literature," Truman Capote noted in a piece on John Huston. "And as a medium, [they] belong not to the writers, not to the actors, but to the directors."</p>
<p>Jeremiah Zagar's adaptation of Justin Torres's superb best-selling, <i>We the Animals,</i> both proves and disproves that premise. The film, shovels into the text, at times reenacting passages word for word. Other times, though, through the use of music, animation, handheld camera footage, and razor-sharp editing, Zagar creates a brilliant cinematic equivalent of Torres’s tome, a task much harder than you might imagine.</p>
<p>However, the final result is not a mere equivalence. The novel and the film together create a new whole, each enhancing the other in numerous ways. While one lays bare the inner life of a child foisted into a world of dysfunctional love, incomprehensible sexual desires, and a poverty that can "cage" one in for life with addictive sentences, Zagar douses the social realism now and then with wallops of high-flying magic realism.</p>
<p>The screenplay begins inside Jonah’s head on his tenth birthday (he is celebrating his seventh in the novel). The boy is part of tribal threesome that includes his older brothers Manny and Joel, a bevy of wildings often unsupervised by their Irish/Italian mother and Puerto Rican dad.</p>
<p>She, not understanding completely about sex, became pregnant at age 14.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"No one had explained sex to Ma when she was a kid -- not the nuns at school and not her own mother. So when she asked Paps, 'Can't I get pregnant from this?' Paps had lied; he had laughed and asked, 'This?'"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He, at age 16, was chatted into marriage.</p>
<p>A family accidentally started by two ninth graders in Brooklyn, a union licensed in Texas, and one now relocated to rural New York, searches for the will to persist, forming a battered unit of affection.</p>
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<p>Now Ma works in a brewery. Paps sometimes as a security guard.</p>
<p>And sometimes Paps beats Ma. Also, the children. Then, without warning, he'll disappear into the bed of another woman, who knows for how long?</p>
<p>When he returns, he's asked, "Why did you come back?"</p>
<p>"Why'd you think?" Paps replies, his answer to most questions.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the lads rob stores and vegetable gardens to survive, tease neighbors, and are introduced to their first porno. A misconception of adulthood is thrust into their minds.</p>
<p>Narrated by Jonah, the pretty one, Ma's special boy, the soft one, the secret chronicler of all that he sees and feels, his Homer-esque notebooks, which have been entertaining us, are kept concealed under his bedroom mattress. We know he'll pull through all this because we have been watching his inner thoughts being revamped into a tale by an older Jonah who's looking back with wonder at how he escaped a fate that caused his bros to become the father they both loved and hated.</p>
<p>With a superb cast (the boys by non-actors), sublime cinematography by Zak Mulligan, invigorating editing by Keiko Deguchi, and an ever-so-wise screenplay by Zagar and Daniel Kitrosser, <i>We the Animals </i>crowns 2018 as a year on film to remember.</p>
<p><i>We the Animals</i>, having already been screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and Sundance earlier this year, opens this week in New York City.</p>
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<span>Woman & The Bull</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/dusty-wright" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/dusty-wright" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Dusty Wright</a></span>
<span>June 29, 2018 - 23:38</span>
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<p><em>Woman Walks Ahead</em> (Studios) </p>
<p>Producer Rick Solomon said it took him 17 years to get his movie made! Based on true events, this compelling movie tells the story of Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain), a widowed "feminist" artist from Brooklyn, New York who, in the 1880s, heads out to the Badlands to paint Lakota Sioux chief Sitting Bull, the Native American hero who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. More like a "bull" in the proverbial "china shop," she is up against it from the start. This is the America that was brutal to Native Americans and women alike, relegating them second class citizens; misguided machoism masquerading as paternal protector.</p>
<p>The film was directed by Brit <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1264352/" target="_blank">Susanna White</a> and written by Steven Knight. And while Weldon becomes politicized by the plight of Sitting Bull and his Native brothers and sisters, I wonder if his original script trumped up the popcorn romance that is hinted between subject and painter. The real life story suggests that Weldon was not interested in becoming Sitting Bull's third wife. It was the one aspect about the film that felt unnecessary. But given the charisma of the two leads perhaps their on screen chemistry muddied those waters. </p>
<p>The entire cast is wonderful but this movie truly belongs to Greyeyes. It's a knockout performance and certainly Academy-award nomination worthy. This veteran actor is a Plains Cree from the Muskeg Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, and he is riveting throughout -- whether digging potatoes or posing for his portrait. And Oscar winner Sam Rockwell as Col. Silas Groves is both menacing and funny, he understands the real danger of both the "savages" and the savage bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. As we know, politics are never easy to negotiate, even in the movies.</p>
<p>Additional kudos to cinematography Mike Eley's stunning camera, with widescreen vistas shot in North Dakota and New Mexico that resonate like Ansel Adams' frontier photographs. I can think of worse ways to spend a hot summer night than sitting through this excellent adult movie. - <em>Dusty Wright</em></p>
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<span>A Fossil Goulash of Terrible Lizards</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/users/brandon-judell" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Brandon Judell</a></span>
<span>June 22, 2018 - 15:00</span>
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<p>Victorian naturalist Sir Richard Owen, back in 1841, coined one of Stephen Spielberg's favorite words, "dinosaur," which is derived from the Greek for "terrible lizard." Jump ahead 84 years to when Willis O'Brien directed what many consider to be the first film featuring these reptiles on steroids, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/TheLostWorld1925FantasyAdventureFullFilmHighQuality" target="_blank">The Lost World</a></i> <i>. </i>Brontosauruses have never been allowed to be reclusive creatures again.</p>
<p>Not long after came Michael Crichton with his 1990 blockbuster novel, <i>Jurassic Park</i>, which has now spawned five films of varying quality, the current <i>Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom</i> being possibly one of the more forgettable.</p>
<p><i>Fallen Kingdom </i>is a sequel to<i> </i>record-breaking<i> Jurassic World </i>and a prequel to whatever's down the pike. The plot: Three years have passed when a soon-to-erupt volcano threatens the existence of Isla Nubar and all the DNA-engineered dinosaurs that roam upon its terrain. Should humans try to save these creatures or let God decide their fate? At a congressional panel, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) slumberously addresses the issue, noting man has proven unable to contro this technology. Our government sides with God and Ian, but not our heroine Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who runs a dino-rights organization in sensible heels.* But what can she do with her group's lack of funds and political connections?</p>
<p>Enter Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), who's employed by the bedridden Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), who was the wealthy co-partner in the creation of Jurassic Park. Mills tells Claire he will supply the cash and manpower to rescue the raptors, pterodactyls, and tyrannosauruses and then transfer the whole gaggle onto a deserted island his company owns with her help. Sounds good, and even Owen (Chris Pratt), who's living a solitary man's life in the woods, is convinced to join the venture so he can reunite with Blue, his favorite raptor. The chance to snuggle with Claire now and then is also a draw.</p>
<p>Don't be fooled, heroes. One should never trust a poorly acted, one-dimension villain making believe he's a good guy. Yes, Eli Mills has other plans up sleeve. He's going to utilize the dinos for . . . . My lips are sealed or maybe I just don't remember.</p>
<p>What follows is the standard "good humans vs. bad humans" trope with a healthy dash of 'unrestrained capitalism is evil" for seasoning. Sadly, director J.A. Bayona, who proved his worth with <i>The Orphanage </i>(2007) and <i>The Impossible </i>(2012), telegraphs many of his thrill moments here. You're going to jump now and then because you've been trained to jump at these moments. Clearly, screenwriters Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, who together also scribed the prequel, suffer from a momentary lack of febrile imagination here, a fear possibly of pushing the envelope.</p>
<p>However, if you hunger for umpteen dinosaurs, you get that. If you need an adorable little girl (an engaging Isabella Sermon) to identify with, check. And if you desire an arm of a nasty being bitten off, check again. There are the thrills, but a lack of real <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuatWL_s-Hk" target="_blank">surprise</a>. Also, a bit more of that Pratt charm would have been appreciated. Still, I know I'll be queuing up for the follow-up. How many of us can resist the chance to watch the past pummel the present in order to control the future? It's the odd deliciousness of rooting for one's own demise. - <em>Brandon Judell</em></p>
<p>*Claire wore Melania pumps in the prequel, which is not the best footwear choice when trying to escape from an allosaurus or its ilk.</p>
<p><em>Mr. Judell is a lecturer at The City College of New York and has written for </em>The Village Voice, indieWire, Soho Style, Flair, New York Daily News<em>, and </em>The Advocate<em>.</em></p>
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<span>Lo Mein and Spaghetti Sauce</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/46" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/46" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Henry Beck</a></span>
<span>November 4, 2007 - 11:43</span>
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<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Daps%26field-keywords%3Danthony%2Bwong%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26sprefix%3Danthony%2Bwon&tag=cultcatc-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank"><em>Exiled</em></a> (Mega Star)</p>
<p>Directed by Johnnie To</p>
<p>Even though all the reviewers have likened <em>Exiled</em> to a Spaghetti Western, it features no horses or guns or vast Spanish landscapes, but it does have plenty of squinting and scowling and good-bad guys and bad-bad guys. Call it a modern multi-genre mashup.</p>
<p>The movie takes place in Macao just days before the transition from Portuguese to Mainland Chinese rule in 1998. <!--break--> On a summery, still, narrow street, something like a tiny neighborhood square in Mexico or Sicily, with little traffic, four gangsters gather. Two are there to kill, the other two to protect, their friend Mr. Wo (Nick Cheung). Wo's wife is upstairs in their unfurnished apartment with their baby, cooking and waiting for her husband to arrive with the furniture, aware of the gathering drama below.</p>
<p>The gangsters are all childhood pals, we discover, and there is a prolonged period of pawing and circling that might be called a Macao standoff.</p>
<p>But orders are orders and in no time there is a battle -- guns blazing, bullets flying -- boy bangers will be boy bangers -- followed just as quickly by a little down time. The lads all pitch in to help carry up the furniture, after which they sit down to dinner and take a group photo.</p>
<p>This dance sets the pace for the rest of the film--old friends, long periods of tension, and a staggering amount of brilliantly choreographed combat, each scoring bullet sending out clouds of red mist, which is a great visual touch.. <em>Exiled</em> is as serious as Martin Scorsese's <em>The Departed</em>, but is at the same time somehow less self-important, and warmer. And there's something about the bad guys fighting badder guys that smacks of <em>The Wild Bunch</em>.</p>
<p>The director, Johnnie To, is one of the steadiest and smartest Asian filmmakers in the business, a sort of throwback to the old Hong Kong days, and he has won or been nominated for any number of international awards.</p>
<p><em>Exiled</em> has the audacity and fatalistic humor of the best Spaghetti Westerns and some of the better Hong Kong gangster pictures, but with twice the action and far more grace. - <em>Henry Cabot Beck</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Daps%26field-keywords%3Danthony%2Bwong%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26sprefix%3Danthony%2Bwon&tag=cultcatc-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank">Purchase thru Amazon</a></p>
<p><em>Mr. Beck straddles the coasts, contributing features on movies, music, books, comics, and other cultural objects to the </em>New York Daily News<em> and many other publications.</em><br /><!--break--></p>
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<section></section>Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:43:43 +0000Henry Beck608 at http://culturecatch.comKiddie Cheesehttp://culturecatch.com/index.php/film/phantom_kiss_gordon_hessler
<span>Kiddie Cheese</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/13" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/13" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Alex Smith</a></span>
<span>November 4, 2005 - 09:22</span>
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<p><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FKiss-Meets-Phantom-Park%2Fdp%2FB0009MK9XC%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Ddvd%26qid%3D1223566687%26sr%3D1-1&tag=cultcatc-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Kiss Meets The Phantom of the Park</a> </em>Directed by Gordon Hessler (Cheezy Flicks DVD)</p>
<p>The marriage of rock 'n' roll and cinema has always been a troubled one. From Elvis to Eminem, countless campaigns have been waged to turn musicians into movie stars, often (if not usually) with flaccid results. For every laudable success there have been some tragic catastrophes. Even the Beatles themselves laid their share of cinematic rotten eggs. Some critics have suggested that the Fab Four's scriptless 1967 made-for-television movie, <em>Magical Mystery Tour</em> is the worst rock 'n' roll movie of all time. Clearly, these critics haven't seen <em>Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.</em></p>
<!--break-->
<p>Though released at the arguable height of the band's powers, Kiss' own 1978 made-for-television movie would prove to be the first in a series of haplessly bloated and indulgent missteps that would eventually trip the masked foursome's six inch stacked heels. Initially conceived as a hybrid of <em>A Hard Day's Night</em> and <em>Star Wars</em>," <em>Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park</em> plays more like a painfully lengthy and undercooked Saturday morning cartoon. Casting the grease-painted rockers as erstwhile superheroes with otherworldly powers, the film spins a convoluted yarn about a rock-hating mad scientist at an amusement park who strives to seize power via an army of androids. Unwittingly part of the evil doctor's sinister plot, Kiss is scheduled to perform at the park, but are summarily kidnapped and replaced by four of the scientist's doppelgangers. Evil robotic Kiss assumes the stage, inciting the audience to riot. Courtesy of some exceptionally unconvincing telekinesis, Kiss manage to -- surprise -- escape, and engage in a ridiculously disjointed onstage melee with their evil twins.</p>
<p>Though long available on grainy, home-burned, bootleg CD-Rs, <em>Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park</em> has never been officially released on DVD until now (courtesy of the brave folks at aptly-named Cheezy Flicks Entertainment). The reasons for this aren't exactly a mystery. Rife with threadbare special effects, a half-baked plot and acting so deplorably stilted that it's palpably painful to endure, even die-hard supporters of the band are hard-pressed to defend it, much less the band themselves. Even when viewed as a kitschy cult artifact, <em>Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park</em> makes for an arduous ninety-six minutes.</p>
<p>Hardcore Kiss fans might find sporadic solace in the concert segments (especially Evil Kiss' re-rendering of "Hotter than Hell" as "Rip and Destroy"), but the band's bloodless screen presence and deplorably wooden line delivery do incalculable damage to their otherwise carefully cultivated mystique. Possibly because no one involved with the film cared to exhume their particular chapter in the fiasco, the DVD comes devoid of any commentary, bonus features or even an apology. - <em>Alex Smith</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FKiss-Meets-Phantom-Park%2Fdp%2FB0009MK9XC%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Ddvd%26qid%3D1223566687%26sr%3D1-1&tag=cultcatc-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank">Purchase thru Amazon</a></p>
<p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=cultcatc-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" /><em>Mr. Smith is a native New Yorker who lives in downtown Manhattan with his wife and daughter, works for Time Magazine, and writes for The New Yorker and other periodicals.</em></p>
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<section></section>Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:22:58 +0000Alex Smith108 at http://culturecatch.comReconsider Babyhttp://culturecatch.com/index.php/film/two_for_the_money
<span>Reconsider Baby</span>
<span><a title="View user profile." href="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/46" lang="" about="http://culturecatch.com/index.php/user/46" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">Henry Beck</a></span>
<span>October 14, 2005 - 00:04</span>
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<p>It happens every so often that a movie appears, reviled by the critical thundering herd, the Rotten Tomatoes Marching Band, that has unique qualities beyond its obvious flaws. While it might not be entirely redeemed, a movie of this sort can deserve a second look.</p>
<p><em>Two for the Money</em> falls into that category, a picture that was blasted into powdery dust last week, and will likely drop off the box office map in short order, which is a bit of a shame.</p>
<p>The movie is about a small-time Vegas fan-phone basement sweatshopper named Brandon (Matthew McConaughey), who'd been a local football hero but was permanently sidelined with a busted knee. <!--break-->When he starts touting sports odds, he hits a string of winners and gets recruited into a sports-advisor boiler room run by a New York hustler/gambling addict, Walter (Al Pacino), who is married to an ex-junkie, Toni (Rene Russo).</p>
<p>Boy picks winners, hits the big time, hits more winners, makes a lot of money for his clients and Walter, and then hits a brick wall. That part at least is very uncomplicated.</p>
<p>Beyond that, the movie is something of a thematic mess. It doesn't quite know where it wants to land: is it a movie about hubris; about what happens when a man lacks the character to handle his sudden success? Not really.</p>
<p>Is it about addiction and recovery, as Walter, Brandon's boss, falls off the betting wagon en route to a bottom he's obviously visited before and knows well? Partly.</p>
<p>It's also about the mentor/protege relationship between the two, very familiar ground for Pacino these days, as noted by several reviewers. But even that doesn't quite explain it.</p>
<p>At its heart, despite Pacino's scenery devouring, which is fun to watch, McConaughey's grayhound geniality, and all the sports wankery, the movie really belongs to Russo's Toni.</p>
<p>Although she's clearly the back-seat passenger in the picture, she's also the secret driver. In a wonderfully understated performance, Russo makes it clear that Toni is driven by the razor-edged understanding of how perilously close she knows she will always be to the abyss. In fact, all she has to do is watch Walter if she ever begins to doubt how easy it is to tumble. As smart and self-aware as Walter is, Toni is by far the wiser of the two.</p>
<p>"Ultimately, at the end, Rene's character tells the universal truth. And she's probably the most self-aware character in the picture," says director D.J. Caruso. </p>
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<p>"What we wanted to say with Walter and Toni, is how self-aware you become when you've been through so much, when you've been a junkie or a compulsive gambler."</p>
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<p>More than that, Toni's clear-eyed awareness of Walter's flaws actually fuels, rather than diminishes, her faith in their relationship. Toward the end, Walter fails a test that would have sent the usual movie wife out into the night, but in this case what it does is add a grace note to Toni, and to the film, that reaches beyond our expectations, delivering an ambiguous, adult quality to the film that few if any of the critics quite got. It doesn't entirely save the picture, but it does manage to go somewhere few movies have attempted to go. - <em>Henry Cabot Beck</em></p>
<p> <em>Mr. Beck straddles the coasts, contributing features on movies, music, books, comics and other cultural objects to the New York Daily News and many other publications.</em><br /><!--break--></p>
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<section></section>Fri, 14 Oct 2005 04:04:14 +0000Henry Beck87 at http://culturecatch.com